Coming to Face with Gender
I was eager to explore the writing format that I was so deeply inspired by that Kate Bornstein has created in Gender Outlaw. The format resembles that of a journal. Filled with quotes, thoughts, poetry, questions, philosophical findings, and personal observations with doodles and photos decorating the art that is writing. In the book, such mixed writing media is so fluently intertwined and coherently laid out that it is digestible and enjoyable to read. I thought it would be fun to explore my personal experiences, and learned concepts from my Gender and LGBTQ+ psychology class through the art of writing that I enjoy most: journaling. Journaling is freeing the creative take on writing, no boundaries to it—like gender is to me. Boundaryless, fluid and flexible, giving space to any expression to fully and authentically exist. However, the challenge is to create a coherent and understandable flow of information that includes personal experiences in a storytelling format, poetic and philosophical tangents of intellectual thoughts, and my learnt conceptions of sex, gender and sexuality all in one collaging journal style.
•••
The earliest childhood memory I have that pertains to gender expression, is when my mother told me the reason my best friend did not want to talk to me anymore was because I chose my dad’s clothes as my birthday outfit. I can still recall it, clear as day, the concept of clothing being gendered, solidifying for me once she made it clear that dressing anything but your ‘given gender’ is wrong and unwanted. From that moment on, comments about my clothing choices became very frequent. Despite being brought up wearing relatively “boyish” clothes, my mother decided they were now unfit for “such a beautiful girl.” The sudden gaining of this awareness, combined with my mother’s sudden policing of my ‘gender’ appearance, was filled with upset and confusion. Yet as a child, you do not question such things, you just take what is told and adapt to it.
“Boys don't like that” she said,
It stung, I must be liked!
Already with a shifted perception.
That in the center of my world
boys occupy the core seat.
So accordingly, without question
I made the appropriate changes.
Growing up, I tried to fit whatever it meant to be a girl—or a woman, as I grew older. My mother’s words, my peers' behavior and so on, were my guiding principles in shaping what that meant. Yet, no matter how much I tried, it always felt too unattainable, it was never good enough. I still remember looking at the boys in my class on a hot summer day. How wonderful it must be to choose to wear shorts with hair showing on your legs and not even bother to hide it or get rid of it all together. Why does being a girl mean having my legs covered in cuts and ingrown hairs? Or another recollection where my anxiety in gym class felt connected to being a girl. How come I feel so uncomfortable to run in gym class? I am worried about showing sweat, looking ugly, being looked at sexually while the boy is running by, with such a carefree attitude, making running look enjoyable. I always sighed in frustration which was followed by the hopeless feeling and thought: “why did I have to be born a girl?”
These initial experiences with the binary world that prompted these furious questions are not a special experience, but a universal one. Everyone is impacted by the binary world, whether they are aware of it or not. And how they experience it and are shaped or impacted by it is different and uniquely based on their personal life experiences. My journey to understanding and facing gender did not start out with gender itself, because the significance of the binary world is that it made gender construct real and therefore invisible.
Gender is a socially made up construct that encompasses gender rules, gender roles, behavior cues, mythic cues, etc. that build on gender attribution. Gender attribution is when we categorize people into the two binaries, “that's a man” and “that's a woman.” Based on the dominant binary gender our world is ruled by, social class status is impacted. Being a man is superior, being a woman is inferior, and with that come their experiences with their social scripts that uphold the division of people into those tightly fitted boxes of male and female.
•••
“The way we perceive others’ gender
affects the way we relate to that person.”
- Kate Bornstein, p.26, Gender Outlaw
SEXUALITY
⌕SEARCH: “AM I GAY? Buzzfeed Quiz”
Questioning my sexuality was the toe dip into the grand journey that was awaiting me. I came to terms with my sexuality during my senior year. I came out as bisexual, but my knowledge of what that meant was so limited. All I knew is that the crush on my best friend was definitely not platonic. Acquiring self acceptance was a bumpy road, a lot of doubt was clouding me since it meant accepting I am not “normal”—according to everything I grew up believing. I was forced to question those beliefs and detach them from what I held as ‘truth’ if I was ever going to make peace with my consistent test result on the “AM I GAY?” quiz that I kept retaking. Breaking the deeply instilled notion of abnormal vs. normal allowed me to see homosexuality and heterosexuality as just different sides of the same coin being sexuality.
Sexuality is a person’s sexual identity encompassing their orientation, desires, attractions, behaviors, preference as well as their emotional, sexual and/or romantic feelings towards others. Sexuality doesn’t go far from gender however. Gender identity is part of the self-definition just as sexual identity is, and it influences how one defines and experiences themself.
QUEER COMMUNITY & SELF DISCOVERY
Part of accepting my sexuality meant the conscious and intentional choice to surround myself with queer friends. My knowledge was limited, but my stride to know and grow was the driving force that kept me observant of the questions, feelings, and thoughts that were coming up. College was the sweet spot to find exactly what I wanted, especially after leaving my old friendships behind. My new but shaky confidence in my sexuality needed a level of assistance. College was the stepping into my pride, and despite still questioning the label bisexual, I claimed the word queer as part of my identity. In less than a week, I was in a big friend group, consisting of many identities and gender expressions. I came to know trans and non-binary people that through conversation have brought to me so much knowledge and understanding of the many intricate experiences. In turn, it also helped me draw parallel lines through relatable feelings we shared, making me question my relationship to gender as my understanding of it kept shifting and breaking down. I started to see gender as an expression.
Knowing people with different gender and sexual identities on a personal level is important when exploring the spectrum of gender and sexuality. One cannot read a book of definitions to start and truly understand them, if they haven’t experienced the definitions in order to draw a clear connection and real understanding of it. The more gender became an aware lens of mine, the more I saw my definitions of what it means to be a woman or man break apart. I was able to break down the dominant gender definition to fit my new perception of it as a spectrum.
A friend once recalled to me their 2020 Halloween, they decided to dress up as boys with their home friends. “I loved it so much I didn't want to take off the beard I drew on or change the clothes I had on. But I saw others feel differently than me, they were not relating to the happiness I was feeling being dressed as a boy.” A memory resurfaced for me, I remember putting my hair up in a beanie, drawing a beard on and filling in my eyebrows. Putting on the baggiest and boyish clothes I had owned in my closet. Locking my bedroom door as I was taking selfies feeling myself dressed as a boy. My closest friend at this time also did not understand my joy. That singular flashback brought that feeling back to the surface because I was able to relate and give it space to exist. It felt so validating, and exciting to share an understanding with someone of this feeling I never gave much room to exist previously.
To me, gender then became something that I could decide, but it wasn’t as simple as that. The big misconception I held on to for a while was that “that is not me.” I could not claim the label trans or non-binary since I am content with my ‘female’ body and my feminine expression. It felt wrong to claim any genderqueer label, and it felt desperate if I forced myself to take up a more masculine appearance to grant me the androgynous look I so desired deep inside. I longed to be perceived androgynous, but I knew my reality, and I knew people, due to gender attribution, would immediately categorize me as a woman, as “she.”
Having queer friends allowed space for such thoughts, questions and feelings to be explored and I was able to relate to many. I felt encouraged to claim an identity that felt better embraced me. The more I strengthened my perception of gender, viewing it as completely fluid and without structure, I too began to see my relationship to my assigned gender at birth and how the pronouns “she” vs “they” made me feel. I validated my body as just a human body, and my soul as just one that leans into the feminine expression, that within itself stretches the concept of fluidity for me. When people used ‘they/them’ to address me, I felt my humanness seen. All my attributes, characteristics, all of my self expression wrapped together in my human body, and there is no wish to be one or the other just to be. I feel myself to have not one gender, despite people’s gender attribution and view of me. With that understanding, I have come to terms with people using ‘she/her,’ it feels less personal and more understandable especially if they don’t know me intimately. I found fluidity in that as well. I do feel as ‘she’ sometimes, I also feel as ‘he’ other times, and most times I feel both, therefore I am not as eager to define myself as I once was, it allows my fluidity to be expressed more authentically.
SEX
“There is no opposite sex, only variations”
Sex Select ▼
☐ Male (XY)
☐ Female (XX)
☐ Other
☐ (XXY)
☐ (XYY)
☐ (YYY)
☐ (XXX)
☐ (XO)
The biggest gender misconception is that it is sex. Sex is distinct from gender, they stand on their own. And just as gender exists on a spectrum, biological sex has variations and combinations of sex attributes. The argument of nature that includes sex to be one or the other, with the explanation of primary and secondary sex characteristics, does not make up for a great argument. Men can have boobs, women can have just nipples. Women can have an Adam's apple, men can have vaginas and women can have penises. There is no clear cut of what makes a man, a man, and a woman, a woman. The binary is broken apart again.
Intersex people exist. There is no way to know your chromosomes unless you get a test to find out. Due to doctors ‘fixing’ babies to fi the binary sex of M/F based on aesthetic reasons more than medical purposes, it’s a hard reality for many people to grasp. Intersex people exist, they are common, it's a matter of not knowing how many get ‘fixed’ without the parents knowledge or consent.
Sex is composed of biological characteristics typically including genitalia, reproductive organs, chromosomes, and secondary sexual characteristics such as body hair and breast development.
Once I gained my hands on this knowledge, the argument my parents would usually put up for me, felt like another misconception that was easy to ignore. Sex is not gender, and gender is not sex. Sex is not only F/M, there is room for intersex.
“By subscribing to the categories of gender based
solely on male/female binary, we cheat ourselves of a
searching examination of our real gender identity.”
- Kate Bornstein, p. 38, Gender Outlaw
Nature is never only one or the other.....
The bending of my perception and visualization of gender and sexuality as a spectrum, fluid, and boundaryless I have found new freedom to explore my questions. When my trans friends feel a certain pressure to pass, it is much easier to see that source of pressure coming not from within themselves. This serves to release ourselves from the pressures that originated from socially made up constructs that would not validate and dismiss anyone who is not clear cut within the binary norm. The origin is culture, not personal. It is unlikely for people to feel like they need to change their body if they live in a society that lets them be who they are.
Cover Photo by Yasmin Pesherov.